But not just the Sun, as broadsheets which should have known better were quick to start spreading the same story of a ‘separatist’ BUK – The Times declaring on July 19th ‘MH17 lost after rebels shot down wrong jet‘. To back this up, they included a graphic with a litany of mistakes, including entirely incorrect passenger numbers –

Yet Strelkov has stated he does not operate the Vkontakte page, rather it is a ‘fan page’. More, the vast difference in sizes between the planes – AN-26 at 78 feet, Boeing 777 at 242 feet, and it being immediately apparent it was a passenger plane, make it highly unlikely anyone connected to NAF would have issued this statement. More likely someone heard about a crash and in the rush for a hot story, put up the first posting in the hope of an exclusive.

Off the back of this, Bellingcat have been a bulwark of the BUK theory, prominently referenced across western media, the MH17 Wikipedia page. No matter Bellingcat’s findings have been frequently discredited, the western media continues to reference them. Now Bellingcat have never been to the site, this was my message to Bellingcat, from the MH17 site –

As for those towing the pro-Kiev line of a ‘separatist BUK’, who have been to the site, Dutch journalist Jeroen Akkermans (right), whose anti-Russian stance has been alleged to be because of his own wounding by presumed Russian bombing in South Ossetia, was there in November 2014, four months after the crash, apparently found small fragments, which later rather miraculously, after an unofficial investigation, turned out to be such part of a ‘BUK’ as to have even Russian markings on them. This, after Akkermans had taken whatever he found, if you believe he found it, off the site, of his own volition, before submitting it to the unofficial examination. However these myriad irregularities have been overlooked by a western media gleeful
at finding something they can call a ‘separatist BUK‘.

So, there it is – headlines based on no investigation at all, mis-attributed social media posts, spurious conclusions based on photos in magazines, parts either planted or looted from the site, headline news based on deleted tweets….